[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 26721-26725]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



         AFRICAN GROWTH AND OPPORTUNITY ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now 
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 434, which the 
clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to the consideration of H.R. 434, an act 
     to authorize a new trade investment policy for sub-Saharan 
     Africa.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will be 30 
minutes for debate equally divided.
  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, I rise in support of the motion to proceed 
to H.R. 434. As I indicated on Friday, when we proceeded to the bill, I 
will offer a substitute to the House language that consists of the 
Finance Committee-reported bills on Africa, CBI, GSP renewal, and the 
reauthorization of our Trade Adjustment Assistance programs.
  Each one of these measures deserves our support. What each represents 
in its own way is an attempt to reach out and provide not just a 
helping hand, but an opportunity--an opportunity for millions around 
the world to seize their own economic destiny.
  Africa has for too long suffered from our neglect. The continent 
faces daunting political, economic, and social challenges. Yet, African 
leaders are seizing the opportunity to press for political and economic 
change.
  The goal of the Finance Committee's Africa bill is to meet Africa's 
leaders half way. It is not a panacea for Africa's problems; rather, it 
is a small downpayment--an investment--in a partnership that I hope we 
can foster through our actions here.
  The Finance Committee's CBI bill does much the same. It builds on an 
economic foundation begun with the passage of the original CBI in 1983, 
but responds as well to the efforts of Caribbean and Central American 
leaders to rebuild their economies in the face of incalculable 
devastation their countries faced this past year. The bill would afford 
the same basic package of enhanced trade preferences offered to Africa 
under the Finance Committee's bill.
  The economic opportunities offered by the Finance Committee Africa 
and CBI bills extend to U.S. industry as well. According to the 
American Textile Manufacturers Institute, the Finance Committee bills 
would lead to an increase in their sales of $8.8 billion over 5 years 
and an increase in employment of 121,000 jobs. The bills are expressly 
designed to ensure that they are a benefit to Africa and the Caribbean, 
and to the United States as well.
  The renewal of the Generalized System of Preferences would continue 
the longstanding policy of the United States of opening our market to 
create economic opportunity throughout the developing world and merits 
our continued support.
  The renewal of the Trade Adjustment Assistance programs is entirely 
consistent with the theme of creating economic opportunity, but it is 
focused on home. I have always maintained that those who benefit from 
trade should help those who are adversely affected. The TAA programs 
have lapsed and must be renewed if we are to fulfill that commitment.
  Now, much has been made in this debate of the fact that Finance 
Committee bills entail a unilateral grant of preferences. The 
implication is that there is nothing in this for the United States. In 
fact, the economic growth

[[Page 26722]]

fostered by this legislation create new markets for our goods and 
services, as well as help create more prosperous and stable neighbors.
  That is an investment I will make any time. I strongly encourage my 
colleagues to support the cloture motion and the motion to proceed to 
H.R. 434.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I yield myself so much time as is 
allotted.
  Mr. President, right to the point made by our distinguished chairman, 
the expression was used, ``meeting halfway.'' I am of the school that 
NAFTA did not work. But assuming it did work, it at least included the 
side agreements with respect to the environment, side agreements with 
respect to labor, and reciprocity with respect to the actual tariffs. 
This particular bill has no reciprocity, whether it be in the 
Caribbean--we are prepared now to list the various tariffs there, 
minding you that the United States average textile tariff is about 10 
percent.
  I am looking at lists of the sub-Saharan Africa tariff rates: 
Ethiopia, the average there would be about--I see some 65, but most of 
them on apparel are 80 percent; other made-up products, textile, home 
furnishings, 80 percent; Gabon, 30 percent for an average there; Ghana, 
25 percent. We are going to do away with the Ivory Coast, which has a 
markup also, a tariff; Kenya: 50, 50, 50, 62 percent on laminated 
fabric, 50 percent on apparel; the textile, home furnishings, another 
50 percent; Madagascar: 25 percent, 30 percent; Mauritius, 80 percent 
for man-made filament yarn, textile floor coverings, apparel, textile; 
home furnishings, 80 percent--I ask unanimous consent a summary of 
these tariffs be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                APPENDIX

                SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA TARIFF RATES--SUMMARY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                 Tariff rate\1\ (percent
                                                       ad valorem)
             HS Chapter and product             ------------------------
                                                              Average
                                                  Range     (estimate)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
50--Silk fiber, yarn and fabric................  0-100               15
51--Wool yarn and fabric.......................  0-100               18
52--Cotton yarn and fabric.....................  0-65                18
53--Other vegetable fiber yarn and fabric......  0-100               15
54--Manmade filament yarn and fabric...........  0-65                17
55--Manmade staple fiber yarn and fabric.......  0-80                17
56--Wadding felt & nonwovens, yarn, twine,       0-100               19
 cordage.......................................
57--Carpets and other textile floor coverings..  0-100               34
58--Special woven fabric, tufted fabric, lace,   0-100               24
 tapestries....................................
59--Impregnated, coated, laminated fabric......  0-100               22
60--Knit fabrics...............................  0-80                28
61--Knit apparel...............................  0-100               31
62--Apparel, not knit..........................  0-100               27
63--Other made-up products, textile home         0-100               27
 furnishings...................................
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Summary of 28 countries' tariff rates (South Africa, Botswana,
  Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, Central African Republic, Burkina Faso,
  Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast,
  Kenya, Madagascar, Malawai, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria,
  Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).

  Mr. HOLLINGS. That is for the sub-Sahara. Later, when we have more 
time I will be delighted to list in there, too, what we have down in 
Nicaragua and Panama, and the other so-called Caribbean Basin 
Initiatives.
  The truth of it is, in the initial observation of our distinguished 
chairman that this is going to give millions around the world a chance 
to seek their economic destiny, my problem is it is going to sink the 
economic destiny of the United States, particularly in the textile 
field, as it were, and many other fields as we set the case for so-
called free trade.
  I wish I had the time to emphasize the fact there is no such thing. 
Starting with Alexander Hamilton, in the earliest days of David Ricardo 
and comparative advantage, and just after the fledgling colonies had 
won their independence, that the Brits corresponded with Alexander 
Hamilton saying now what you should do is trade best with what you 
produce and we will trade back from the mother country with what we 
produce best. In a little booklet, ``Reports On Manufacturers''--there 
is one copy left there at the Library of Congress--Alexander Hamilton, 
in a line said: Bug off. We are not going to remain your colony. We are 
not going to continue to ship our wheat and our corn and our coal and 
our timber, our natural resources, like some kind of infant republic, 
and let you have the manufacturing strength.
  As a result, on the 4th day of July, 1789, the second bill to pass 
the National Congress after we had adopted the Resolution for the Seal 
of the United States, the second bill was a tariff bill of 50 percent 
covering some 60 articles. We built this economic giant with 
protectionism.
  We maintain certain protections, oh, yes, we make sure we protect 
intellectual property, you know, that brainy crowd, that Microsoft 
crowd that has 22,000 employees who are all millionaires; 22,000 
millionaires working for you. I wish I were one of them. That is a 
wonderful situation, when you have all that manpower. But the real 
strength of our democracy is our middle class. Henry Ford said: Pay 
them enough so they can buy what they are producing. That is how we 
develop, with our manufacturing strength, this industrial power, the 
United States of America.
  Now there is a zeal for continuing foreign aid as foreign trade. This 
is not a trade bill, it is an aid bill. It is unilateral. It is a one-
way street. It is not even like NAFTA. There are not any side 
agreements whatever, yet you do not find some of our leaders in the 
environment and in labor. I know not why the chairman mentioned ATMI. 
No one has worked more intimately with ATMI than myself, until we got 
to NAFTA. Then the fabric boys said: The dickens with you apparel boys, 
we are going for broke. Certain it is they can sew down in Mexico as 
well as they do in the United States. That is your problem. Our problem 
is, with all this fine manufacturing, where we can produce the fabrics 
and continue to make a fortune.
  So they just dropped their political strength. As the principal 
author of five textile bills that passed in this Senate in the last 30 
years or more, I know better than any that we have the votes from up in 
the Northeast. The apparel boys--Saul Chaikin would turn over in his 
grave at this particular bill. Herman Staorbin, Jack Sheinkman--real 
leaders. I don't know where they are today. I cannot find them around. 
They seem to go along with foreign aid, export some more jobs. Yes, 
under NAFTA, we lost 420,000 textile jobs. The chairman is quoting ATMI 
that it is going to produce 121,000 jobs. That is pure poppycock. I 
make a bet on it. Let him bet on his words, any odds he wants and I 
will cover the bet. I can tell you here and now there is no chance of 
creating the jobs. This is a one-way export of jobs.
  That Finance Committee comes around and says: Exports, exports, we 
have to emphasize exports. We do not have anything left to export. We 
are not exporting any software. We are not exporting the computers or 
anything else such as that. We had to put in Semitech to save the 
semiconductor industry. They talk about aid and subsidies and 
everything else--oh, they are all for themselves but they are not for 
working Americans.
  It is unique. Here I am--I voted for the right-to-work law and I am a 
strong supporter at the State level, not at the Federal level; I want 
my advantage down there in South Carolina because that is how we are 
getting a lot of good industry there; I want that individual decision--
but this so-called conservative southern Governor is now having to 
protect organized labor when there is no one around this morning at 
all. There is no voice to be heard to save the jobs up there in the 
Northeast or anywhere else.
  This is a sad occasion. Let me try to list some of those things we 
have imported now, from the Center of Domestic Consumption, the various 
products there, to show you exactly where we are. With respect to the 
machinery sector--48.9 percent of the machinery sector is represented 
in imports. I know with respect to textiles it is over 66 and two-
thirds.
  I told the Members on Friday we were alarmed when it reached 10-
percent import penetration in textiles. Now two-thirds of the clothing 
I am looking at is imported; 86 percent of the shoes. I know with 
respect to electronic products it is 57.9 percent.
  It is sad. We invented the radio and electronics, and the Japanese 
have taken over in those areas. These things are too detailed to put in 
the Congressional Record. I will have a better

[[Page 26723]]

listing. Sometimes when you try to get information, you get so much 
information it is totally useless.
  My point is, the strength and security of the United States of 
America is like a three-legged stool: One leg is our values as a 
nation. That is unquestioned. Everyone knows America will commit in 
Somalia and help bring about freedom and democracy in Bosnia. As we 
travel the world as Senators, we see we are the envy of the world with 
respect to individual rights, freedom of mankind, and equal justice 
under law. They all acknowledge that. We do not have to worry about 
that leg.
  The other leg, of course, is the military leg or military power. As 
the one remaining superpower, that is unquestioned.
  But the third leg, the economic leg, has been fractured. We have had 
foreign aid. It worked. This Senator is not complaining about it. I am 
making a factual observation as to where we are. Yes, we started after 
World War II and taxed ourselves some $85 billion for the Marshall 
Plan. We sent over our machinery, the best of our machinery, the best 
of minds, the technology, the managers, and capitalism has conquered 
communism in the Pacific rim and in Europe. We continued.
  I will never forget, as a Governor, they said: Governor, come on, 
what do you expect these recovering and emerging nations to make, 
airplanes and computers? We will make the airplanes and computers, and 
they will make the shoes and the clothing. My problem today is, they 
are making the shoes, they are making the clothing, they are making the 
computers, and they are making the airplanes. They are dumping them.
  We are finally getting the attention of the Senators from Washington 
and Boeing. They are beginning to understand. I have had their 
opposition over many years with respect to trade because they like the 
Federal Government, in defense, doing all their research, they like the 
Federal Government putting in the Eximbank to subsidize their sales 
overseas. We never had subsidized sales for textiles. They love all of 
that. Then they said: Oh, we have to get to work; we have a global 
economy, competition, competition.
  The textile industry--look at the record--for 15 years has reinvested 
an average of $2 billion a year modernizing. I told the story of the 
Clinton plant the other day. It is 100 years old. It looks like from 
the outside it will fall down, but it has the most modern machinery. 
There was no one in the card room. Where they once had 125 in the weave 
room, there are no more than 15. They have mechanized, computerized, 
and electronically controlled operations.
  Those companies that have survived are the most productive, 
competitive textile industry in the entire world. Our problem is, it is 
not going to pay to invest and continue to compete and survive for the 
plain and simple reason that this one-way street of foreign aid--I wish 
it were going to aid those countries.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I will continue at the appropriate time. 
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor, and suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I want to transfer my hour under 
cloture. I ask unanimous consent that the hour transfer to the 
Democratic manager so it can be yielded to another Senator today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. HOLLINGS. It is just a transfer of an hour. I do not think 
anybody will object to it. I have to make an appearance before the city 
council of Isle of Palms relative to the loss of my home. I have to 
leave to make that appearance and come back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Chair, and I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                         Privilege of the Floor

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Paul 
Hamrick, a congressional fellow in Senator Graham's office, be granted 
the privilege of the floor during debate on this legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, this side yields back what unexpended 
time we have.


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time having expired, under the previous 
order, the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 215, H.R. 434, an act to authorize a 
     new trade and investment policy for sub-Sahara Africa:
         Trent Lott, Bill Roth, Mike DeWine, Rod Grams, Mitch 
           McConnell, Judd Gregg, Larry E. Craig, Chuck Hagel, 
           Charles Grassley, Pete Domenici, Don Nickles, Connie 
           Mack, Paul Coverdell, Phil Gramm, R.F. Bennett, and 
           Richard G. Lugar.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call under the rule has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
motion to proceed to H.R. 434, an act to authorize a new trade and 
investment policy for sub-Sahara Africa, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) is 
necessarily absent.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 90, nays 8, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 341 Leg.]

                                YEAS--90

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Allard
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Brownback
     Bryan
     Burns
     Campbell
     Cochran
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     Crapo
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Gorton
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hollings
     Hutchinson
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moynihan
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nickles
     Reed
     Reid
     Robb
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith (OR)
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Torricelli
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                                NAYS--8

     Bunning
     Byrd
     Cleland
     Collins
     Helms
     Smith (NH)
     Snowe
     Thurmond

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     McCain
       
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 90, the nays are 8. 
Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in the 
affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, I believe strongly in free trade. I 
believe in the productivity of the American worker. I believe in 
American ingenuity and technology and I believe that, if we eliminate 
the barriers, our industry and our workers can compete effectively with 
anyone in the world.

[[Page 26724]]

  I have always supported fast-track legislation to give the executive 
branch the freedom to negotiate trade agreements with other nations.
  But back in 1993, despite my inclination to support free trade, I 
wrestled long and hard with the facts and the figures and I determined 
that NAFTA--the North American Free Trade Agreement--was not a good 
agreement for us.
  It was a hard vote for me--in 1993--but I ended up voting against 
NAFTA. I was convinced that it would indeed cost this Nation jobs.
  Unfortunately, time and the trade statistics have proven me right. 
NAFTA was a bad agreement. Since the implementation of NAFTA, we have 
managed to turn a trade surplus with Mexico of $1.7 billion a year into 
a trade deficit that, this year, will exceed $20 billion.
  The giant sucking sound has been heard in Kentucky--5,000 jobs from 
the apparel industry--sucked out of the State and the Nation. Thousands 
of appliance manufacturing jobs have drifted south to Mexico. At least 
7,000 Kentucky jobs are gone.
  In particular, the apparel and textile industries have been 
devastated. In the last 56 months--since the implementation of NAFTA, 
the apparel industry has lost 305,000 jobs, and the textile industry 
has lost 125,000 jobs.
  They are just gone, disappeared.
  Now, we are being asked to expand portions of this agreement to 
include the other Caribbean and Central American countries--and to 
provide new trade preferences for the 48 countries of Sub-Saharan 
Africa.
  Basically, we are being asked to take a failed policy--NAFTA--and 
expand it dramatically. That makes absolutely no sense at all.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against this expansion of NAFTA and the 
guaranteed loss of additional U.S. jobs.
  The CBI parity portion of this legislation is based on the premise 
that we need to spur economic growth in the Caribbean and Central 
America. The same arguments are used in favor of this bill that were 
used in support of NAFTA.
  Supporters say that economic growth and investment in our neighbors 
to the south will benefit us in terms of increased exports and 
increased domestic employment because of those exports. And that logic 
is very difficult to dispute--over the long haul.
  Certainly, healthy economies in the Caribbean and Central American 
countries would open new export opportunities for U.S. goods and 
services. Certainly, expanding economies in the area would reduce the 
pressure of immigration--legal and illegal alike.
  Certainly we want healthy economies in this area to help strengthen 
the growth and stability of democracy in our neighborhood.
  We do need to do everything we can, within reason, to encourage 
economic growth in the Caribbean. It makes sense.
  But it doesn't make sense to sacrifice an entire U.S. industry and 
hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs to do it. And that is what this bill 
will do.
  The Caribbean Basin apparel and textile business is already booming. 
Last year, apparel and textile exports from the Caribbean and Central 
America to the United States grew 9 percent, a growth rate double that 
of the U.S. economy.
  At $8.4 billion in 1998, textile and apparel exports from the 
Carribean Basin countries to the United States already exceed the $7.5 
billion in textiles and apparel exported to our Nation by Mexico.
  When it comes to helping expand the economies of the Caribbean 
countries and Central American countries, the American textile and 
apparel workers have already given at the office--430,000 jobs have 
been lost to help fuel this exodus.
  Expanding NAFTA in this way, at this time, will simply reward the 
companies that have already left the United States and sent their 
manufacturing facilities to the Carribean Basin because of lower wages.
  In the process, we stand to lose another 1.2 million jobs in the 
apparel and textile industry.
  Ask the people in Campbellsville, Kentucky if that makes sense to 
them.
  It doesn't.
  The African trade portion of this bill doesn't make much more sense.
  I think that everyone certainly agrees that we need to encourage 
economic development in Africa. It is in our long-term best interests 
to establish strong trade linkages with Africa because it is a huge 
potential market for U.S. goods.
  And if this bill simply provided incentives for increased 
manufacturing and production of African products, I would probably not 
have any problem with it.
  But this bill doesn't just open the door for increased trade with 
Africa--it opens, even wider, the door to a flood of Asian products 
that could further devastate our domestic textile and apparel industry. 
So, our good intentions would, in all likelihood benefit Asia much more 
than Africa.
  The bill creates a huge new incentive for transshipments of Asian 
goods through Africa.
  Transshipment is nothing new. Asian manufacturers have been illegally 
transshipping goods into the United States through Africa for more than 
15 years.
  Customs has estimated that transshipments from Asia have grown from 
$500 million in 1985 to $2 billion, and possibly as much as $4 billion 
a year. Africa has been one of the major transshipment routes into this 
country.
  This bill, because it lowers tariff duties dramatically, would create 
an almost irresistible incentive to cheat even more.
  And ironically that cheating will actually undermine NAFTA and the 
Caribbean Basin Initiative which include strict anti-fraud provisions 
that safeguard our domestic producers to some extent.
  Because it offers lucrative incentives for Asia to transship and no 
realistic methods to prevent transshipment, billions of dollars of 
illegal Asian imports will enter the United States duty free and quota 
free from Africa in direct competition with NAFTA and Caribbean Basin 
products.
  And no matter how good U.S. workers are, they can't compete against 
Asian imports that are subsidized from fiber production on down.
  The U.S. Customs Service doesn't have the resources to stop illegal 
transshipment. Local African customs officials don't have an incentive 
to stop it.
  Asian manufacturers, who dominate world trade in textiles and apparel 
are unlikely to invest money in Africa if it is more cost effective to 
transship through Africa.
  And that means the Asian manufacturers will either transship the 
entire garment or they will only do minor assembly work in Africa. 
Either way, the yarn, the fabric and most, if not all, of the labor 
will come from Asia.
  A couple buttons or a zipper here and there might be added in Africa, 
but this trade bill will benefit Asia much more than Africa and African 
workers.
  So, here we have two trade bills wrapped into one. Both are flawed. 
Both jeopardize domestic industries and domestic workers who have been 
devastated already.
  The Caribbean Basin Initiative portion of this bill expands NAFTA--
which has already been costing us thousands--hundreds of thousands of 
jobs--many of them from my home State of Kentucky.
  It rewards companies which have already moved their jobs from the 
United States to the Caribbean and for what purpose?--to expand growth 
in an industry which is already growing very nicely in those Caribbean 
nations.
  More U.S. jobs will be lost as a result.
  The African trade provisions in this bill are designed to increase 
investment and expand the manufacturing base in Africa. But in the 
absence of strong, realistic restrictions on transshipment of Asian 
manufactured products, this bill would, in all likelihood, benefit Asia 
more than Africa.
  And it would further devastate the apparel and textile industries in 
our own country.
  I still believe in fair trade. But there is nothing fair about this 
bill for the U.S. apparel and textile industries.

[[Page 26725]]

  We keep talking about creating a level playing field when it comes to 
fair trade. But this bill pulls the field right out from under U.S. 
industries which have already had an uphill fight just to stay alive.
  It doesn't make any sense. And I urge my colleagues to vote against 
it. NAFTA should have taught us a lesson.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I have a question. If the Senator from 
Florida is going to speak now, I am not actually trying to get the 
floor ahead of him. I wanted to ask the Senator from Florida, is it his 
intention to speak on this legislation now?
  Mr. GRAHAM. I am prepared to yield time to the Senator if he is 
prepared to speak at this time.
  Mr. BREAUX. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. GRAHAM. Will the Senator from Minnesota yield? I had indicated to 
our colleague, the Senator from Louisiana, who wishes to make a 
memorial statement for our colleague, Senator Chafee, that he would 
have an opportunity to do so at this time.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Absolutely. Of course.
  Mr. GRAHAM. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Louisiana.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana is recognized for 5 
minutes.

                          ____________________